I am attempting to elicit responses about how ST amateurs’ races went this past weekend for anyone who raced and I am hoping to do it in a way that all of us find interesting. To that extent, could you try to answer the following questions:
- What race were you in and what were the important conditions that affected the race if any (weather, # of people, course, etc)?
- What was your goal going into the race, how did the race go?
- What did you do best in the race?
- What mistake did you make and how did you learn from it?
- Did any equipment you use work out really well or fail you?
- Upon reflecting on the race, how does it shape your training or strategy for your next race?
- Anything that you want to ask the ST community about regarding your race?
Even though I don’t have a race this past weekend, I’ll use my last race on June 3rd as an example. My hope is that by answering the questions above, it makes it less of a touting one’s horn and more of a chance to share with other triathletes so that we can support and learn from each other and perhaps get ideas that help us.
My race on June 3rd was the IM 70.3 in Hawaii. There was a bit of rain and heat on the course, the bike wasn’t too windy, much less than my test ride a few days earlier but the run was very windy on one particular long stretch.
My goal going into the race was twofold, to get under 5 hours and to qualify for the 70.3 Worlds. I finished in 5:05 and 15th in my age group meaning for a few hours I was upset at myself for having barely missed both my goals. Then in the roll down ceremony, I got very lucky and got a spot to Worlds. My place in each area was 456 in the swim, 68th on the bike and 44th on the run.
Hmm, what I did best is not usually my focus. I guess it was that generally on the bike I know I have to catch up from my terrible swimming, but I don’t want to kill myself for the run. After an initial flurry of passing folks, I told myself to be calm and patient and not try to pass more than 5 people to the turn around and 5 people from there the 20 miles to T2. I kept dialing myself back on the bike and stayed mentally on top of this.
Mistakes - there were many. A minor but annoying one is that I left my Garmin on my bike and forgot to bring it with me on the run. More major is that I compounded a bad swim by at one point going off course and having to angle back adding at least a minute to my swim. Secondly, I overused my calves leading up to the run such that during the run, I couldn’t increase the pace even when I felt I could without my calves firing as they were on the verge of cramping up the whole run especially the last five miles. I learned that I need to figure out what is stressing my calves in the swim or bike and handicapping me in the run.
Equipment - as I was refilling my Profile Design HC 35 at an aid station, the rubber and plastic lid got pulled off as I pulled the gatorade bottle out after filling it. Also, on the bike, with such a combination of wind and hills that were highly variable, I found myself switching into my small chainring occasionally and this annoyed me. I don’t know how to fix the lid problem except to be more careful and on the chainring, it has made me think about switching to a 1x setup on my next bike (reading Nick’s post at Tririg also helped me think about this).
Upon reflection, I realized I am in way over my head going to Worlds after squeaking into the race. So, I hired a coach and this is really helping me train smarter. I also have figured out (it should have been more obvious to me) that I am ruining my calves on the swim trying desperately to be faster as I have cramped in my calves while swimming in races and training often. So, I am working on pulling more and kicking less in my training so that I swim in races more like this too and then preserve my calves for the bike and most importantly the run.
I guess my question for ST is how the heck (besides video analysis and yards in the pool) do folks become such good swimmers when they didn’t grow up swimming as a sport??? It is my achilles heel.
Also, I am going to try posting these questions weekly on Mondays to make this a regular thing. If you have any suggestions on the questions asked in order to get responses that are more interesting for all of us to read, can you share those with me?